NOT Calstar - Lake Sonoma 10/13/07

by Dave Staples

Saturday at Lake Sonoma was on of those rare exceptional nights for any observing location, no wind, not to cold, very steady skies and fog in the valleys knocking down light domes. It was not a real long night, I was up with my 7 year old daughter and a coworker and his 2 sons, we were doing a preparatory run for a school starparty next weekend. Making sure all the equipment was in top shape and putting together a list of objects that a bunch of 7 and 8 year olds would be interested in.

That said it was a night of eye candy to remember, not a long night as the kids started petering out around 10pm, but well worth the time.

Jupiter, although it was well on the way down, was remarkably steady showing the NEB and SEB as well as bands on either side of the afore mentioned, most observations at 169 to 200x. At this point, as DDK is wont to do, I'll mention that I observe with an old but exceptionally satisfactory C8 (that has a Celestron mirror...go figure) using a variety of plossl eyepieces.

The rest of the night was more eye candy, M57, the Double cluster, M33, M22, M24, M17, M28, and M8. We also spent some time with doubles. Epsilon Lyrae was a clear split at 80x and the gorgeous Alberio, and Gamma Delphinus to name a few.

Transparency was very good as well, the dust lanes M31 were clearly visible, not something that I usually get to see with my scope.

Although it would have been nice to spend more time with faint DSO's with the outstanding conditions, it was still a pleasure to have such crisp and clear observations of the showpiece objects.

Cheers,